British universities -Money and meaning
Studying a “useless” field at Oxbridge costs a mint in forgone earnings
mint:这里是“巨款”的意思，而forgone这里是“放弃、没有也行”的意思（to abstain or refrain from; do without），
简洁却生动，用中文翻译就是：巨款上学放弃挣钱。
Sceptics of higher education often complain that universities offer too many frivolous degrees with little value in the workplace. Since elite universities tend to produce higher-earning graduates than less selective institutions do, you might expect them to teach more practical courses. Yet data from Britain’s department for education show the opposite. Undergraduate students at prestigious universities are more likely to study purely academic fields such as philosophy and classics, whereas those at less choosy ones tend to pick vocational topics such as business or nursing.
1、frivious: 1) (of people or their behaviour) silly or amusing, espcecially wjen such behaviour is not suitable.
2) having no useful or serious purpose 这里应当是第二个意思。
2、prestigious: respected and admired as very important or of very high quality.
3、choosy: careful in choosing; difficult to please 精挑细选；爱挑剔；难取悦。
果然哪里的高等教育都有相似的问题。有利于就业的专业似乎是学生们的心头好，自然希望辛苦入学的“好学校”多教授一些实用的技能。而那些名校们反而会开放那些纯学术的专业。
What could explain this seeming contradiction? One reason is that employers treat a degree from a top university as a proxy for intelligence. This means that students at elite institutions can study bookish subjects and still squeak by financially. The median Cambridge graduate in a creative-arts subject—the university’s least lucrative group of courses, including fields such as music—earns around £25,000 ($32,400) at age 26. Economics students from less exalted universities, such as Hull, make a similar amount.
1、proxy: 1) the authority that you give to sb to do sth for you, when you can not do it yourself.代理权
2) a person who has been given the authortiy to represetn sb else.代理人；代表
这里是“代表”，但不太清楚对应哪一个意思。
2、squeak: to only just manage to win sth, pass a test. 勉强通过；侥幸成功
3、lucrative: producing a large amout of money; making a large profit 获利多
4、exalt: 1) to make sb rise to a higher rank or postion; somtimes to one that they do not deserve 提拔，有时候是提拔到不该得到的职位上
2) to praise sb/sth very much.赞扬
这一段阐述了矛盾的原因。雇佣者们以学校来衡量智慧，因为名校学生往往能兼顾经济和繁重的学业。即使是知名学校的艺术专业，学生们的毕业收入可能和学校不如他们好、但是是经济专业的学生的收入差不多。
Yet even though Oxbridge students can pretend to read “Ulysses” for years and still expect a decent salary, they end up paying a large opportunity cost by pursuing the arts. That is because employers reserve the highest starting wages for students who both attended a leading university and also studied a marketable subject. Cambridge creative-arts graduates earn £11,000 more at age 26 than do those from Wrexham Glyndwr University, whose arts alumni are the lowest-earning in Britain. In contrast, Cambridge economics graduates make £44,000 more than do those from the University of Salford, where the economics course is the country’s least remunerative.
1、remunerative: (formal) paying a lot of money 报酬丰厚的
本段继续列举事实。美术专业的学生们为了追求艺术，牺牲的是大笔的金钱。他们假装着能读晦涩难懂的《尤利西斯》，也期望着能有体面的收入。事实上，雇佣方希望的是名牌学校、热门专业的学生。后面就用实实在在的数字列举，展现这一扎心的状况。
Many gifted arts students would struggle to crunch numbers. But for those who can excel at both, the cost of sticking with the arts, in terms of forgone wages, is steep. Cambridge creative-arts students have a level scores close to those of economics students at Warwick, but earn about half as much. That is tantamount to giving up an annuity worth £500,000.
1、crunch: to deal with large amounts of data very quickly 处理信息（快速大量）
2、steep: 1) rising or falling quickly, not gradually. 陡峭的 2) (of a rise or fall in an amount) sudden and very big 突然；大起大落
3) (informal) too much; unreasonable 过高的；过分的；不合理的 这里是第三个意思。
3、tantamount: having the same bad effect as sth else 等于；效果一样
4、annuity: a fixed amount of money paid to sb each year, usually for the rest of their life 养老金
继续惨淡扎心的事实。就算是名校的艺术专业又能如何？薪酬相比次级学校的经济专业学生，还是很难过。
Who can afford such indulgence? The answer is Oxbridge students, who often have rich parents. At most universities, students in courses that lead to high-paying jobs, such as economics and medicine, tend to come from wealthier families, partly because such applicants are more likely to have the examination scores necessary to be accepted. At Oxbridge, however, no such correlation exists. History and philosophy students there come from richer parts of Britain, on average, than their peers studying medicine do.
1、indulgence:1） sth that you allow yourself to have even though it is not essential 嗜好；爱好；享受
2）willingness to ignore the weaknesses in sb/sth 宽容；包涵；
3）(usually disapproving) the state or act of having or doing whatever you want; the state of allowing sb to have or do whatever they want 沉溺；放纵；纵容
这里是第一个意思。（个人意见）
2、correlation: a connection between two things in which one thing changes as the other does 相互关系；相关
最后，牛津的艺术专业学生还是需要有钱的父母兜底。大多数学校，学经济、医药等热门“好学科”的孩子们有相比其他专业的学生更富有的父母，但是牛津的情况恰恰相反。